Modern packet-oriented communication systems, in particular those conforming to ITU-T recommendation H.323, make a large number of features available which are familiar from conventional, circuit-switched communication technology such as, for example; call forwarding, call offering, call override, and call waiting. Since connections to terminating devices of very different types are possible in packet-oriented communication systems of this kind, the problem may arise that a particular terminating device requests a feature which a connection partner of said terminating device is unable to provide. In this case the feature request will have a fruitless outcome, which in packet-oriented communication networks in particular will not be recognized until a relatively long period of time has particular will not be recognized until a relatively long period of time has elapsed. Such timeout effects, as they are called, result in disagreeable delays for the person using the terminating device. This problem has proved to be especially acute in the case of connections between packet-oriented communication systems which are mutually independent in terms of their configuration and administration.